The tree
hardly laughs these days
And when it does
its lips are yellow
with tales of friends
done down by the saw
Their corpses
carted off by the timber merchants
There are funeral pyres
in the clearing
Killing pain in the crest
oozing boils on the bark
The iroko has no time
to count its rings
The mahogany’s girth
lies shredded by
A careless cutlass
Don’t ask the woodpecker
About the orchestra around its beak
or the weaverbird for the laughter of its loom
There is a gaping fright in the foliage
as the rain falls brown between the seasons. . . .
(Pause)
When the forest loses its crown
the earth forgoes its head.
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